Rory McIlroy carded a level-par 70 in his opening round at the 125th US Open at Oakmont Country Club on Thursday, navigating the brutal Pennsylvania layout with the kind of disciplined patience that has eluded him at this championship for the best part of a decade. The Northern Irishman, playing his first major since completing the career Grand Slam at Augusta in April, sat four shots behind early clubhouse leader Patrick Cantlay, whose six-under 64 in the morning wave set a target nobody in the afternoon group looked likely to threaten once the wind shifted and the rough began to grow teeth.
McIlroy’s round contained five birdies, four bogeys and a double-bogey at the par-four 15th, where he found the brutal church pew bunkers off the tee and was forced to wedge out sideways. It was, by his own admission afterwards, “a round of two halves” — and not just because of the scorecard. By the time he stood on the 10th tee, the breeze that had given way to stillness through the morning was gusting at 18 to 22 mph from the south-west, and Oakmont’s already-firm greens had begun to glaze. The afternoon scoring average rose by almost two strokes.
A measured start in trying conditions
McIlroy’s front nine was the work of a player who has learned, painfully, what Oakmont demands. He hit nine of fourteen fairways across the round — a figure that would have been considered ordinary at most venues but ranked him inside the top 15 for the day on a course where the USGA had grown the primary rough to five-and-a-half inches. His strokes-gained off-the-tee figure of plus-2.1 led the field through the morning wave, a reminder that when his driver behaves, he remains the most fearsome long-game player in the sport.
Crucially, he putted with the kind of composure that has been missing from his recent major efforts. He took just 27 putts, gained 1.4 strokes on the greens, and holed from inside ten feet on six occasions — including a slippery eight-footer for par at the par-three eighth that prevented an early slide. “I felt like I left a couple out there,” McIlroy said in his post-round interview with NBC. “But on a golf course like this, you have to be patient. Par is a really good score around here, and I just tried to keep reminding myself of that.”
How conditions changed the championship
The dynamic of the opening round shifted decisively just after midday, when a band of warm air arriving from the Ohio Valley stiffened the wind and accelerated the drying of greens that the USGA had already pushed to the edge of playability. The Stimpmeter reading, which sat at 14 in the morning, climbed to nearly 15 by mid-afternoon — a figure not seen at a US Open since Shinnecock Hills in 2018, when complaints about greens speeds became a tournament-defining controversy.
The change punished aggression. Of the 75 players in the afternoon wave who had teed off by 14:00 local time, only three were under par at the turn:
- Ludvig Åberg, two-under through nine after holing a 35-foot eagle putt at the par-five fourth
- Xander Schauffele, one-under at the turn but giving back two shots in his final six holes
- Hideki Matsuyama, one-under through twelve before a double-bogey at the par-three 13th
Jon Rahm, playing alongside McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler in the marquee group, signed for a 74 that included three bogeys in his last six holes. World number one Scheffler shot a 72, his frustration evident on the 17th tee, where he was caught on camera muttering to caddie Ted Scott after another perfectly-struck three-wood ran through the fairway and into the rough.
Historical context and what comes next
McIlroy has not won a US Open since his record-breaking eight-shot victory at Congressional in 2011, and his recent history at this championship reads as a catalogue of near-misses and missed cuts. Five top-tens in the past decade have all been undone in similar fashion — a Saturday round that drifts past 73, a Sunday charge that arrives one birdie too late. The hope around the Oakmont practice ground this week, however, was that the weight he had carried since his last major triumph at Hoylake in 2014 was lifted at Augusta.
The forecast for Friday calls for a 70 per cent chance of thunderstorms in the early afternoon, which could soften greens dramatically for the afternoon wave — but McIlroy is scheduled to tee off at 07:51 local time, before any weather arrives. If he can play his way into the red figures across the opening eight holes, the second-round leaderboard could look very different by Friday evening.
For now, level par feels less like a missed opportunity than a foundation. At Oakmont, that is often the only kind of round that wins the tournament.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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